As the title suggests. I am interested in thoughts on how other big firms view the Weil implosion, what measures they are taking to prevent the same, how this affects things going forward etc.

I graduated in 2023 and I own my practice as of this year.

The time has come to select my federal student loan repayment plan. Has anyone recently made a decision? What did you decide on?

My firm made six figures this year but I haven’t engaged with a CPA yet so I don’t have pin point accurate numbers. I was also a W-2 employee separate to my firm until just a few months ago, so I will show income for that as well. I’m worried my income will show astronomically and inaccurately high since I am no longer W-2.

Any advice?

I’m a new receptionist at a law firm and just passed the probationary period. I had a review and my boss said I need to be inventive. Basically, find things to do around the office. It could be anything. I just need to stay productive.

I admit I’m a little lost with this so any ideas on what to do would be great!

Edit: I work for a social security firm. It also handles long-term disability, short term disability, federal workers comp, civil rights.

Current duties:
- answer phones
- scan and process mail
- send outgoing correspondence for remote legal assistant
- file paperwork
- update postage log and client's postage usage monthly
- close cases
- write and mail cost letters to clients
- process faxes
- check tracking of certified mail receipts
- tell office manager if anything needs to be restocked

I am a paralegal and office manager who works at a small law firm supporting 3 attorneys that practice in the areas of criminal defense, personal injury, workers' compensation, estate planning, and most recently we just started practicing in probate law. To my knowledge, the firm has used Juris 2.6 for time entries and billing clients since the firm was created in 2004 (I have been here since 2016 and took on office management in 2023). We use Converge for credit card payments. We also have an IOLTA account.

I finally got the managing partner to agree to look at options for a new program that can do time keeping, billing, and payment processing but I am overwhelmed by the amount of programs when I search online. I would like to hear about programs that can do all three and maybe won't cost as much as what we're paying for Juris which is $461 per month and then there's a small separate fee for Converge at $19 per month.

Hello All,

I am in the market for a Virtual Assistant. Has anyone used "Attorney Assistant" (https://attorneyassistant.com).

I really need some admin help (letters, phones, med record requests etc).

Just curious if anyone has any experience with them and thank you!

Recently, I posted asking if there were any solos (like me) without any employees. Over a hundred of you responded, and it was inspiring to hear your stories. For reference, I handle about 40 pre-lit/lit cases, PI, mostly car accidents, make about 300-400k a year after business expenses in a VHCOL city. Have one assistant I use occasionally for urgent admin stuff and lean a lot on AI.

I thought it would be fun to dig a little deeper. For those who are solos, what does your non-firm life and financial situation look like? For example, you can touch on the below:

Age and do you have a significant other and does he/she work?

Do you have/want kids and how many?

Do you live in a VHCOL, HCOL, MCOL and LCOL?

Does your practice have a lot of volatility?

Do you rent or did you buy?

Are you happy where you are financially or do you feel like you need to scale your practice and take it to the next level? If the latter, will you do it through marketing or adding another practice area/partnering up with someone?

How long do you see yourself doing this? Do you save aggressively or spend?

Anything interesting about your situation.

It was inspiring to see how many of us solos are thriving with our quality of life and practices, thought we could come together to share more about ourselves

PI Attorney here doing mostly pre-lit. I used to work as an attorney at a law firm, but they mostly took high-value cases.

Now that I’m running my own practice, I’m curious: how do you guys handle smaller cases? I’m talking minimal PD, state limits cases or cases that clearly aren’t going to be worth much.

I’m starting to get leads like these, and I’m not sure whether I should take them on or just pass.

I feel like those could take 2–3 months of a case manager’s time, only to end up making around $5k in profit.

Is it worth it?

Would love to hear how you all approach these.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Hi all. I'm looking for an Oregon attorney willing to supervise me through the Oregon SPPE

Foreign-trained lawyer, 8 years of practice (litigation and advisory experience)
California immigration consultant since 2022 (U.S. immigration experience)

Oregon State Bar confirmed my SPPE pre-eligibility and I
Passed MPRE

Any advice on how to find supervising attorney will be appreciated. Thank you

Hi all -

What is the best way to find a part time or reduced hour staff attorney / counsel role? I don’t see many of these arrangements advertised.

My experience so far includes: 3 years in big law and 2.5 years at an international company as legal counsel (all financial serves reg).

I have gone through five separate rounds of interviews, each with three different partners for 30 mins. Interview no. 5 (supposedly final) was 3, 30 minute rounds in person, the rest were online. Its been five weeks since I started this process. I would love to work here - aligned work, good culture, high pay and reasonable billables. Its a firm of some 50-75 attorneys with a great local reputation.

When I left my final interview last Wednesday, the office manager said to expect Friday afternoon or Monday. Today, she told me recruiter "nothing yet, hopefully in a few days." So it got delayed again.

My first firm was 4 attorneys, current firm is 10 attorneys. In neither case have I experienced anything so drawn out. Is this normal with bigger firms? Are they perhaps just waiting for choice #1 to accept or reject an offer? I can't keep waiting, I can't focus at work at all!

Hi All,

I've been in a bit of a bind lately and don't really know many lawyers to talk this over with. I've received 2 job offers after being abruptly terminated for "not being a good fit" in an in-house role.

The first offer is in-house counsel for a fairly large national company. They offer 170k and 12 days PTO. 4 days in office one day wfh. Not terribly interested in the work, but I'd be able to live pretty comfortably. The commute is okay, 20-40 minutes depending on traffic.

The second offer is for local government, civil division. They're offering 150k with 15 days PTO (several more days as off as well via holidays and leave). 3 days in office and 2 wfh. The work seems interesting. Although I'd have to relocate to a new city that has a higher cost of living (albeit it's not huge). I'm comfortable relocating if it's for the right job.

I prioritize work life balance and care about wfh and enjoying my days of PTO when I use them. I had an awful experience working in-house in a toxic company. Attorneys were expected to respond to emails and attend meetings during their days off and we were not treated very well either. I'd get new assignments at 4:30pm and be asked to finish them by the end of the day. It's left me pretty jaded, but I'm wondering if I just had a bad experience and should give it another shot. In all honesty, I'm leaning towards the government job, but I'm not sure whether I'd be making a mistake career-wise. It also seems high risk to relocate for a job that could or could not workout.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Just curious. I know this economy seems to be squeezing a lot of people dry. I was talking with a dentist friend who said his practice has slowed down a ton and it’s not looking good which is crazy for dentists.

I‘ve considered making the switch to PI from family law but I just wanted to get a pulse on how everyone is doing because I’ve also heard that insurance companies seem to be settling less so you need to be okay with spending the money to go to trial, insurance defense is getting better with keeping more money in the pockets of the insurance companies, etc. it’s basically not an easy “settle” industry anymore from what I’ve heard.

I know PI is obviously different from dentistry too because it’s more of a B2B industry and people won’t necessarily stop bringing in cases because it makes them money at no cost to them unlike dentistry so I’d imagine the demand doesn’t really slow down but I just wasn’t sure if cases are still flowing strong and if cases are still settling fairly easily or if there’s a slow down like other law industries have been seeing and you have to put up more of a fight now.

Hi all,

In November we’re launching an online gallery to sell artists’ work, and we’ve drafted a consignment agreement we’d like checked before we ask anyone to sign it.

We’d especially love to hear from solicitors who specialise in arts or commercial law. But we’re also keen to hear from artists, gallerists, or anyone who has signed or written one of these agreements.

Happy to share the full draft by DM with anyone willing to take a look. Thank you!

Lately I've been having to deal with clients who seem, at the slightest sign of distress, to deal with it by just zoning out/ignoring me. Like if I need discovery, I'll email telling them "I need your car title" but then for four days they won't respond, and then at 11 PM they'll email me a blurry selfie of them standing next to a car license plate, and I'll email back the next morning saying it doesn't count, but then they never follow up on that.

I've had to reach out to peoples' family members, roommates, etc. to ask what is going on, and they will report some variation of "Oh, X is just really overwhelmed with the divorce" or something like that. But they basically stick their head in the sand, and act like if they ignore the problem it doesn't exist. But just wait until we get to court and it explodes on them.

Has anyone else dealt with clients like this? If so, any advice on how to get them into actually doing the bare minimum for you?

I’m 45. Just got my second law degree recently. First one in Europe back in 2004. Moved to the US in 2014, drove a truck, built a trucking company with 40 trucks and returned to law school in South Florida in 2024. I just graduated and passed the BAR. I’ve decided to set up my private practice but still didn’t decide what type of law. Ideally I’d love to find an attorney who plans to retire in a couple of years, help with the practice (as an independent attorney), and eventually inherit or buy out the practice. Not sure how to find someone like that. Any advice on how to find a mentor or what branch of law would be suitable for self teaching? Any advice is welcome. Thanks

Anyone going to Filevine’s LEX Conference this year in San Diego? What are you hoping to see? Features you’re looking for?